FC11AEgypt's Old and Middle Kingdoms (2850-2052 B.C.E.)

The Old Kingdom (c.2850-2190 B.C.E.)

Egyptian civilization started much as Mesopotamian civilization did, with the rise of independent city-states, called
nomes, organized around irrigation projects. These city-states
often fought each other for land and power. Bit by bit, different nomes
absorbed each other in these wars until
there were only two kingdoms left: Upper Egypt in the south, and Lower
Egypt in the north. Finally, a king of Upper Egypt, known variously as
Menes or Narmer, conquered Lower Egypt
and united the land. Soon afterwards, the period of Egyptian history
known as the Old Kingdom began. Generally, during periods of prosperity
such as the Old Kingdom, Egypt would be
united under one pharaoh. However, during times of turmoil, it would
split back into Upper and Lower Egypt until a strong ruler reunited the
land.

The Old Kingdom was a peaceful and prosperous period. It was also
the great age of building pyramids, massive tombs to preserve and
protect the dead for the afterlife. Tied in with
this was the involved and expensive process of mummification, which
preserved the body for the next world. Contrary to popular belief, the
pyramids were not built using slave labor, but
rather the labor of peasants who were free for such work during the
flood season. At this time, the pharaoh was seen as a god who embodied
all of Egypt and was the only one entitled to an
afterlife. However, Egyptian peasants could feel that they were sharing
in some of that afterlife by working on the pyramids. Pyramid building
also provided peasants with employment and
some income from the pharaoh during the flood season when they could do
little else anyway.

There were about eighty of these monumental structures built. The
largest of these, the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, contained some 2.3
million limestone blocks, each weighing several
tons. Even in the best of times, building such structures would be a
huge burden on the economy. In times of low floods, such as started
around 2250 B.C.E., the strain proved to be
too much. As a result, the Old Kingdom went into a period of decline.

The First Intermediate Period (2190-2052 B.C.E.)

There were several reasons for this decline. The huge cost of the
pyramids coupled with low floods and the resulting poor crops have
already been mentioned. There were also
religious, economic, and political factors. Since the pharaoh mainly
worshipped Re, the sun god, at Heliopolis, the priests of Re gained
power and prestige. Eventually, they
undermined the divinity and status of the pharaoh himself, referring to
him merely as the "Son of Re". The pharaohs' status also diminished
because they often married women of non-royal
blood, which made them seem closer to the people and less god-like.

Besides the economic strain of building pyramids and maintaining
priests for the benefit of previous pharaohs, the royal treasury also
suffered from giving out lands to various priesthoods and
nobles. Consequently, they could establish their positions more
independently of the pharaoh. The king's officials ruling the different
nomes were often of royal blood
themselves. Many of them established hereditary positions in their
nomes, passing the governorships on to their sons. In time, they became
virtually independent rulers, splitting
Egypt up into a number of separate city-states. Symbolic of the
pharaoh's decline was the fact that these governors started claiming
afterlives for themselves, building their own tombs in
their home provinces rather than in the shadow of the pharaoh's
pyramid.

As often happens, decline bred further decline. The poor harvests
hurt the pharaohs' power and prestige since they were supposedly
responsible for good crops. This bred turmoil and
civil war, further weakening the agriculture and economy. Nubian tribes
from the south and Libyans from the western desert seized the
opportunity to raid and add to this anarchy. Contemporary accounts
reflect this situation. "The dead are thrown in the river...Laughter
has perished. Grief walks the land." According to one Egyptian
historian, "Seventy
kings ruled for seventy days." The truth is that for nearly two
centuries no king ruled all of Egypt. Five dynasties are listed from
this period, but none of them could control more
than just part of the land.

The Middle Kingdom (2052-1778 B.C.E.)

Eventually, a strong dynasty arose around the city of Thebes in the
south and reunited Upper and Lower Egypt in 2052 B.C.E. The new
pharaohs faced three major problems in restoring order
to Egypt: powerful local governors, the powerful priesthood of the sun
god Re, and agricultural turmoil. The new pharaohs replaced local
governors with their own men and rotated them
occasionally so they could not establish their power in one area. They
also created many of their officials from the middle class of artisans
and traders. These men would depend on
the pharaoh for their positions since they were from humble origins. As
a result, they would be more obedient to the pharaoh.

The priests of Re were dealt with by replacing Re with Amon, the
patron god of Thebes, as the main state deity. This broke the power of
one priesthood by putting another less threatening
one in its place. However, over time the priests of Amon would gather
huge amounts of land and power into their own hands, controlling an
estimated thirty percent of Egypt's real estate by
the time of the New Kingdom.

Agriculture and prosperity revived as the pharaohs repaired the
complex irrigation system that the Egyptian peasants relied on. One
major engineering project was the restoration of Lake
Moeris in the desert west of the Nile Delta. Over the years the channel
feeding this lake had silted up, causing the lake to dry up. In the
Middle Kingdom, the channel was dredged,
the lake was restored, and new farmland was developed around it. The
lake also served as a reservoir since its channel could be opened up or
blocked off in times of high or low floods
respectively.

The Middle Kingdom also saw Egyptian power expand beyond its
borders. During the Old Kingdom, no major enemies threatened Egypt's
security. As a result, the pharaohs had been
content to stay mostly within Egypt's borders along the Nile, just
safeguarding their gold supply from Nubia to the south and the copper
mines in the Sinai Desert to the east from nomadic
raiders. The pharaohs of the Old Kingdom had not even kept a permanent
standing army, relying on civil officials to lead peasant recruits
whenever campaigns were necessary.

The anarchy of the First Intermediate Period changed that a bit. The
rulers of the Middle Kingdom extended Egypt's power southward into
Nubia. This land was important to Egypt as
its primary source of gold and had been loosely controlled during the
Old Kingdom. Now the pharaohs built a string of massive fortresses
along the Nile in Nubia to secure their hold over
it. Egypt's influence was also felt to the northeast in Palestine in
order to protect its copper mines in the Sinai. Its control here was
not nearly as tight as it was over Nubia,
which the Egyptians saw as especially vital to their interests.

This period also saw Egyptian trade with the outside world increase
in importance. Commercial contacts extended to Cyprus for bronze and
copper, Phoenicia for cedar wood, the Minoan
civilization on Crete for pottery, and the legendary land of Punt
(probably the Somali coast of East Africa) for incense.

Culturally, the Middle Kingdom was a golden age in Egyptian history.
Art (especially statuary and jewelry) and literature reached a high
point of development. In architecture,
pyramids were still built, but not on the grand scale of the Old
Kingdom. A burial complex known as the "Labyrinth" was built. It had
some 3500 burial chambers and was meant to stop
grave robbers with its bewildering complexity rather than with a
pyramid's mass. Unfortunately, neither method succeeded in foiling the
thieves, and only one tomb from 2500 years of
Egyptian history, that of Tutankhamen, escaped being looted. When the
Greek historian Herodotus saw the Labyrinth, it was more than just
ruins, and he claimed it was more impressive than
the pyramids.